Smooth McGroove is back, this time with a Chrono Trigger beat that's pretty dang kickin! This guy is too cool for school.
Oh, right. Also some reviews. I guess we'll do those now.
Defender of the Crown
A little background
Defender of the Crown was ported by Ultra (aka Konami) to the NES in July 1989. It was made by Cinemaware, who went on to make a bunch of games I've never heard of so I won't list them here.
Defender of the Crown is cool because not only is it a medieval simulator, it also incorporates a lot of medieval tournaments, warfare, and more into one big strategy/negotiations game. It's like Crusader Kings II, only, you know, old. It also reminds me of Lords of the Realm II, aka the most awesome old PC game ever, except also really old.
First impressions last forever
This NES port doesn't look all that great. The map screen is dull, the sprites in battle are muddy, and the overall color palette they chose is dull. I also have no idea at all what I'm doing, which leads to me getting in a fight and swiftly losing."In the Game of Thrones, you win or you die..."
I'm like the Eddard Stark of this game.
But as I played further...
There's a pretty cool idea here, buried under all the extremely difficult and obscure gameplay. Basically, you want to pick Wilfred, because he's the most balanced, and get an army ASAP. Of course, you have to get money to get an army (as this is a strategy game) so you go on raids or do tournaments and stuff and probably lose.
The computers are ruthless to the point of unfair, and nine time out of ten you'll probably end up just failing completely and becoming the court jester or losing your head. I'd imagine the Amiga version, with a keyboard and mouse, probably played a lot better, because this NES version isn't great.
So what's the conclusion?
I really want to like Defender of the Crown, because it has everything I like in one game. Medieval warfare and tactics, deep strategy, and cool fighting. Unfortunately, in the end I can't recommend it. It's just not a very good port. I wanted to be a Lannister, instead I was Sansa Stark. And that's enough Game of Thrones references for this review.
Copies are around $5-10.
Deja Vu
A little background
Deja Vu is part of a trio of adventure games that made it from the Macintosh (part of the "MacVenture" series) over to the NES. The other two are the hard to find Uninvited and the ever-classic Shadowgate. These games are considered extremely classic, with some great writing and interesting stories overall. While the Macintosh versions are obviously the best (if only because you can use a mouse), they did pretty dang good with these NES ports as well.
They also made a sequel to Deja Vu called Deja Vu 2: Lost in Las Vegas (which sounds more like a movie about lost pets or a Home Alone spinoff than a game about a hard-boiled detective) but that never got ported over. Which is too bad.
First impressions last forever
The writing and graphics in this game are great. While Shadowgate's menu interface had a medieval vibe, this one goes all-out in the "detective notebook" thing. The text is interesting, the music is good enough background noise, and the controls are a decent mouse substitute.
But as I played further...
This game is classic noire. You thought L.A. Noire was noire? Well, these guys did it a billion years before those jerks even existed! The characters are memorable and the game actually delves into some pretty dark themes (much like Shadowgate, which has some grisly descriptions of textual death), but the adventure is solid and a lot of fun.
I love adventure games, and it's always great to find a good one I haven't played. I found it hard to put Deja Vu down after getting thoroughly engrossed in its story.
So what's the conclusion?
While the NES controller isn't a great keyboard and mouse substitute, it doesn't hurt Deja Vu one bit (minus maybe slow cursor speed). What's sad is how well remembered Shadowgate is, while Deja Vu (and Uninvited) are pretty much forgotten. If you got even the slightest bit of enjoyment out of Shadowgate, you owe it to yourself to give Deja Vu a chance. It's a cop-with-nothing-to-lose action as good as it gets, with a fun story, monologuing, and pretty much anything fans of old detective movies will love.
Copies are a bit tricky to find but never are too expensive, usually around $3-5.
Demon Sword
A little background
Oh Taito, what weird games you made before Square Enix bought you.
Demon Sword (which has the phrase "RELEASE THE POWER" above the title, which is pretty great) was a sequel to the arcade port of Legend of Kage. Kage came out in August of 1987, while Demon Sword was January of 1990. A bit of Legend of Kage background is required to understand the review: that game was basically just Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on the NES, only not as cool as I just made it out to be. You climbed trees, jumped a billion feet into the air, threw ninja-stars (or deflected them with your sword) and murdered other ninjas. You did it over three stages with limited lives, and the game cycled. That was the whole game. You can tell it was an arcade port.
Demon Sword intended to use a similar formula but flesh out the game, making it better. Did it? Eh.
Also, the guy on the cover looks like Conan mixed with Stannis Barathian (aw crap, another Game of Thrones reference slipped in) when in the game it's very obvious he's a samurai and it's set in medieval Japan. Not even close, localization team. Not. Even. Close.
Lastly, the Japanese version had six more stages and bosses that were cut for no reason from the US version. Again, way to crap it up for the states.
First impressions last forever
This game sure looks better than Legend of Kage, which looked like total garbage. It plays similar, with space jumps, dudes spawning from nowhere, and a general sense of non-direction. Though hey, power-ups!
But as I played further...
The weirdest thing is, I kind of like Legend of Kage, and I don't like Demon Sword. The further I got, the more frustrated I became. I'm glad I have life this time (vs one hit deaths of Kage), but attacks are so near impossible to deflect death is inevitable. The game also makes it out as if there's somewhere I should go, but never offers any direction towards it. I get upgrades (which is cool), but because of the totally inability to not get hit all the time, I don't feel empowered. The game's a mess.
So what's the conclusion?
Demon Sword is a weird sequel where you'd think everything was improved over the previous game, but they still somehow screwed it up. On paper, everything in Demon Sword is better: a life bar, better weapon upgrades, better graphics, a story/point, etc. But in execution the game is sloppy, and trying to give it a point falls flat. Weirdly enough, the arcade-style frustrations of Kage are much more enjoyable than the controller-snapping unfairness of Demon Sword. It's like they didn't even playtest it. Kage you can actually get better at, and use that skill to advance further. Demon Sword is a huge crapshoot.
I guess I might be being a little harsh, but seeing as there's roughly eighty quad-billion NES platformers, you can probably skip this one. Copies are very cheap, usually $3 or less.
Desert Commander
A little background
Not to be confused with "Dessert Commander," Desert Commander is another game by the dudes who brought us Deja Vu...or their publisher, rather. Kemco published both, is what I'm trying to say. Because it's weird I have two of the same...you know what? Let's start over.
Have you every played Advance Wars? You know, the game with little kids as commanders over this brutal war on the GBA, and it had that absurdly catchy song? The game was basically a mix between Fire Emblem and...I dunno, Command and Conquer? Only tuned down a notch.
Well guess what? This game is Advance War's grandaddy! Released in June of 1989 as an NES exclusive, Desert Commander was quite ahead of it's time for a console platformer.
First impressions last forever
Geez, this game looks a lot like Advance Wars (or I guess it should be the other way around). And they got the "desert" thing right: sand everywhere. That's cool, I'm cool with that. I like sand. I also like tanks and shooting stuff, so this game seems alright from the get-go.
But as I played further...
Desert Commander is good fun, with a few minor problems. The first (and biggest) is your units' movement speed is set to "slow" and can't really be sped up. The second is the CPU can be pretty tough.
That's it. Other than that, game's solid. Seriously, it's fun. It has the same "battle" cutscenes as Advance Wars when units engage (except in NES style), and the strategy is very solid. The lack of a tutorial is a bit annoying, but it's the NES days so it comes with the territory.
So what's the conclusion?
While I want to fully recommend this game, it pains me to have to admit that Advance Wars is better. But if you're playing NES games anyway, you don't care about modern games and their improvements, right? Yes? Maybe?
Point being: Desert Commander is a solid, modern (as of 1988) war game with great turn-based strategy and excellent controls and visuals. If you like that sort of thing, than grab yourself a copy!
They're usually between $5-10.
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